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Papabubble. I was just watching the CoolHunting video (embedded below for easy viewing!) interviewing the candy makers at the new NY store, and it was incredible. I feel like those kids in the candy store, face pressed against my monitor drooling over the incredible candy making process ~ turning a simple mixture of sugar, water, and glucose combined with flasks of coloring and flavoring ~ into what looks like delicious candies, and perhaps just as fun, the perfect medium for sculpting random dioramas out of (as well as classics like Gehry's cardboard wiggle chair)! Truly impressive is watching how all of the candy is made by hand, down to the mixing in of coloring and stretching to aerate until its more translucent. With stores in Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Tokyo, the NY store is the first in the US.

Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition comes with lots of fun schwag - Special Edition is presented in a customized Grand Theft Auto metal safety deposit box and contains Grand Theft Auto IV in special packaging, The Grand Theft Auto IV Art Book with never-before-seen production artwork, Selected Soundtrack CD with exclusive material to this release, Rockstar Keychain for the safety deposit box keys, and a Limited Edition Rockstar Duffel Bag And Amazon pre-orders also get a free Liberty City GTA License Plate as well. Retailing at $89 and releasing on April 29, 2008 for the PS3 (and the 360). I impulse bought my PS2 specifically for GTA back in college... and now i'm extremely tempted to impulse buy another PS3 (the first one i bought i left for my ex)... although perhaps its worth holding out for the super slim PS3 to come? Trailer videos below!

With the retirement of Fidel Castro - here is a nicely timed campaign for Matusalem Rum that has launched, and there are some adorable print/tv ads worth taking a look at. While i have yet to taste this rum, these ads are working on me, because i'm definitely curious! The layered cutout, print/illustration look has totally made my day. Featured in the ads are a Fidel Castro cutout explaining why he expelled their best rum, since "The Caribbean has never seen a pirate like fidel. He stole an island and threw away the treasure away." Check out the three video ads below as well as another print ad!

NOTCOT Note: I'm excited to introduce you to Jenny Lemieux and Leo Corrales, of HERO Design Lab! Old friends from my Milan grad school days, they were nice enough to show me Toronto, and we had so much fun all weekend, that they've even written some posts for you! Starting off check out this awesome behind the scenes look at Monster Factory (who has had much love across NOTCOT over the years)!

We dropped by the Monster Factory factory today, as I'm dying to get my hands on one of their super cute little kid-friendly guys, and of course, we wanted a sneak peak at how the monsters come into being.... We chatted with partners Bliss Man and Rhya Tamasauskas (Adam Dunn wasn't in) and some of their team. The coolest, gentlest people, I have to say, which only makes sense. We got a behind the scenes glimpse of how they turn their concepts into patterns, then various prototypes, before stitching together the 65 kinds of monsters. We love that they do the whole thing in Toronto, and hire local fashion grads to lend a hand. See the many pictures after the jump!

Also part of the GE Ecomagination ad campaign is 'Fishing', an adorably sweet desalination advert where "Chaos breaks out aboard a Norwegian boat when its fishermen start harvesting bottles of fresh water straight from the sea." The music is really a nice touch on this ad spot. Embedded after the jump!

As i'm sure most regular NOTCOT readers have noticed ~ my background and those of our few contributors is quite varied, but passion-filled! Justine and i grew up heavily inspired by both design and nature, and as a result i'm here doing NOTCOT, and she's helping out when not busy finishing up her PhD in Animal Behavior and fencing... we grew up surrounded by all types of creatures, so it should be no surprise that we're smitten with Life in Cold Blood, and i'm anxiously awaiting the DVDs... Here's what she has to say about Attenborough's latest:

Those of us lucky enough to be in the UK have caught our first look at the final installment in David Attenborough's "Life" series. And this final series is a group particularly near and dear to my heart, the herps! "Life in Cold Blood" takes a look at the world's diversity of reptiles and amphibians. The first episode: "The Cold-Blooded Truth" did not disappoint, packed full of gorgeous footage and remarkable creatures.

The making of ("Under the Skin") was equally exciting, including glimpses of Attenborough in the early days of his career. The man is, without question, a legend. As a zoologist in training, I think I can honestly say, his documentaries have been an inspiration. And the producers of the series may just have outdone themselves again. You owe it to yourself to check out the BBC Life in Cold Blood site in its entirety of clips and goodies, but here are couple shots to whet your appetite after the jump!

DVD and Book are at the BBC Shop... which all Planet Earth lovers simply must have.

Can you believe that is layered vinyl stickering? Creating that depth through layering? Such a nice mix of the precision of vector lines cut with a vinyl cutter... yet brought back out from the digital to a physical mixed media piece? I discovered the work of Jorge Oswaldo through his video on Current TV (embedded after the jump for your viewing pleasure along with a few more of my favorites from his work!). Talking about ways NOTCOT has inspired me daily... this one takes it to a new level... i received the vinyl cutter for my birthday, made a limited edition series of stickers, one of the guys who bought the stickers tips me off to this awesome video, and now how can i not push the boundaries and start making crazy art with it? Let's just say i have some silly street art ideas for reflective vinyl stickering... but until then, check out the video below of Jorge Oswaldo's walk through his studio, his process, and his incredible work with vinyl... unlikely you'll ever look at stickers quite the same!

First things first ~ i think my favorite thing about running the NOTCOT sites is YOU. Yes, you readers who find and share the most inspiring and incredible things with us whether it is via NOTCOT.org, email, im, etc. I don't lie when i say that thanks to you, i haven't had a day that i wasn't incredibly inspired by something since the sites launched back in 2005. So, thanks for that!

But moving along, this whole little 4am emotional outburst is triggered especially by the latest TED talk with JJ Abrams that Jason Wishnow was kind enough to enlighten me with. I had never really looked into the background and philosophies of producer, director, screenwriter behind things like Lost, Alias, Felicity, etc... who knew the guy was quite the geek, lives right in my neighborhood, and might have a box/packaging obsession to rival mine? In fact ~ he has a laser cutter! (which he apparently uses to make his own boxes as well as turning his kids sketches into 2D renderings) - all this random info is courtesy of a fun NYTimes interview i just found... and his full TED bio is after the jump.

But if you're wondering why i have an image of this awesome Tannen's Magic Mystery Box with the incredible typography up there... well, in his TED talk, JJ Abrams will tell you his story of this 15$ mystery box that his grandfather bought him, that he has STILL YET TO OPEN... and he discusses the concepts of infinite possibility and the power of a sense of potential... how mystery is the catalyst for imagination... and that life altering moment where he realized the possibility that mystery is more important than knowledge... the difference between what you think you're getting versus what you're actually getting... and how this applies to movies, storytelling, life... and how incredible it is that todays ubiquitous technologies have made it possible for anyone to instantly try their hand at writing/publishing (i.e. blogging) and movie making to a degree that wasn't even possible a mere 30-40 years ago. Anyhow, this is an inspiring one to kick off your Thursday with... watch the talk after the jump!

DGTLHYBRD just opened my eyes to the beautiful site (and movie) ~ Bustin' Down The Door ~ with .org #8029, and between the music, the site design, and the movie itself, i'm terribly tempted to take a drive down along the coast to San Diego tomorrow, and chill out from the buzz in my head that was CES/Vegas. I'm absolutely taken by the layered tea stained paper look over the depths of a school of fish in the ocean, combined with vintage photos and video of a turning point in surf history.

So while dan and i got sidetracked from "real work" researching the insanely bizarre world of Cup Noodles... you already saw the Custom Cup Noodles you can make at the factory/museum... well now we have 20 youtube ads embedded for you after the jump. We tried to just show a few, then dan found more and more amazing Cup Noodle Ads, and we couldn't resist sharing the full collection with you. This all started with my discovery of the funniest cutest animated caveman ads that all end with HUNGRY? Cup O' Noodles (in that slim jim ad type voice). As the pack of *tiny* cavemen race around to try and catch some very large prey... well, its just hilarious, watch a few! And after that, dan started finding more and more... the main campaigns being a No Border campaign that launched when Cup Noodles were going into space, showing how food could bring people together... and the most recent campaign is the Freedom campaign which is an anime series. So happy friday! Here is more than your usual dose of distraction ~

On bizarre 4am spontaneous research projects... we just got inspired to learn far too much about Cup Noodle (or Cup O' Noodles). Best thing we found? Ok well there's a tie, but we'll show you the other part in the next post... there is a Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum! And in that museum that is in the factory in Osaka ~ you can make CUSTOM Cup Noodles, where you draw on the cup, fill it with your noodles, choose your toppings and flavors (including cheese, curry, corn, the usuals), seal it up, plastic wrap it... and then even put it in a crazy inflatable bag! Anyhow, watch the videos below to see the custom Cup Noodle Bar, as well as how those noodles came to be as kids work with the factory workers (think crazy happy ikea meets wonka factory look) to make the noodles from scratch!

I was just checking out Andy's site and came across this beautiful silhouette animation all about the a fountain of youth in a bottle and the man who goes through the ages keeping it to himself... only to teach the lesson of "how loving a gift isn't complete until its shared" as Cory Godbey intended with this piece - Le Cadeau du Temps, view the animation below! And read more at Zune, where they even have wallpapers for computers as well as zunes, icons, etc for your downloading pleasure.

Guitar + Vox + OhMiBod = Vibrator responding to the sounds of the guitar. Ever have those days where it you're holding two objects and it suddenly *clicks* that they're meant to be put together? Well a box of toys showed up from OhMiBod and the VOX AmPlug came on the same day, and it suddenly dawned on me that together they could be the perfect combo gift and only ~$100! [There's a quick video if below if you don't know what i mean.]

Ok ok, hear me out. The VOX AmPlug is perfect for electric guitarists who want to hear that beautiful full bodied sound through headphones. The OhMiBod and the more attractive and enticing new Gspot vibrate to the music connected through a headphone cable... Connect the two together ~ and its an interesting way to seriously touch someone through the music you PLAY.

We all know girls can't resist a musician (yes, yes, protest if you must, but we all know its pretty hard?) ~ this would take that love of musician and his music to a whole new level. Also, if he is the worst guitar player ever maybe this would be a nice gift for his poor girlfriend. And for all those groupies you can even plug in more than one... Come to think of it... this *could* work out nicely for those gamer guys too, hook it up to the output of your XBOX/PC/etc and every shot you take (or when you get shot) in a shooter game will have a whole new effect?

Woohoo! We're at Gift Guide Day 24 (gotta motivate myself, 31 feels like a lot of days) - and today i'm excited to share my picks from our sponsor Audiocubes, who you've seen a bit in our tags the last few months ~ they've been very kind in supporting what we do! And they are our go to store for audio goods and crazy japanese gadgetry (in fact we were shopping there before they even approached us!). And just to get you started on all the goodies in today's gift guide, for anyone who hasn't seen how this freaky Facebank works... check out the video below!

By now i'm sure you've heard about and seen the flashy Virgin America website and all the sweet goodies they've packed on to their flights - from the plugs at every seat, the neon purple/blue mood lighting, ordering drinks, movies, and tvshows with the swipe of a credit card, seat to seat chat (yes. imagine the possibilities... close quarters stalker possibilities on a long flight?!?!), google maps to track where you are, and even the cutest animated saftey video (youtube below). Anyhow, i got a chance to fly Virgin America for the super quick flight up to SFO from LAX for the Oakley event... and since my hour long flight was delayed another hour (sf fog!) i took some pics of the plane, my empty row, and the RED Entertainment UI while i was sitting in there. (I also found a nice little video of the UI in action on Youtube).

I'm glad the Cherryflava folks were ignorant enough to call these Sea Monkeys, because it launched a bit of debate between some of us, and we were quite sure that the Triops they were growing were far larger and of a very different species (more like mini horseshoe crabs?). They do however sell kits that are quite similar to the Sea Monkey process, but none nearly as cool looking as this direct mailer kit the agency FoxP2 (check out their site, it is awesome the way they approach branding) created for National Geographic Kids.

From here we dug up videos of Sea Monkeys and Triops... and every Triop kit out there... and then every crazy insta-pet kit from our childhoods as well as what else is new out there! (i.e. venus fly traps and praying mantis to frogs to butterflies to ant farms to gel antfarms and gel plant kits) See more images below to follow along...

Not much to say here... but i'm not sure why the systematic destruction of chocolate bunnies to eerie music in their pastel worlds in three scenes is so satisfying this morning. Watch Sander Plug's Chocolade Haas - Commissioned by Cut-n-Paste for Grote Kunst voor Kleine Mensen (Big Art for Small People) In collaboration with: Lernert Engelberts.

I wrote about Hendrick's Gin back in April of 06... back before i even tasted it, but came across their ad in BusinessWeek and fell for the playful design of their site and bottle... i love their old style that has a very Monty Python feel to it at times. And without even tasting, i showed you their Unusual Times which was quite funny and well put together. Well since then, i've hunted it down ~ first in Oxford at a random bar my sister took me to, and then finally found it in LA as well... and as a non-gin lover, Hendrick's is my gin of choice... because its the least gin-tasting... its got a wonderfully delicious infusion of cucumbers and Bulgarian rose... my favorite is having it in a gin & tonic with slices of cucumber, but will definitely have to explore more of the mixes soon...

Anyhow, new news from them ~ they are launching a new campaign, and its fun to see how they've grown since then... and staying true to their branding, the new ads and point of sale pieces were so fun i had to share! They describe themselves as "A brand that embraces the unusual with odd and inventive advertisements that feature collages of absurd images with playful intelligence." And i couldn't agree more. Well, go see the pics and vids below ~ more fun tidbits of info about them mixed in as well.

Ok so when i get on a reusable bag trend... and try to stop... it's hard! Because now everyone who finds new reusable shopping bags is sending them over, and i just have to share one more with you. Kristopher Dukes just had these Flip and Tumble bags show up in her inbox, and seeing as they're not exactly couture... she's passed them on to add to my growing list of reusable options. From a design perspective i needed to post these because linhchi and i were just thinking the other day... wouldn't it be easiest just to have an attached pouch? just cram the whole bag in it? Like a Popple! And then here we have Flip and Tumble doing just that... they describe it as a sock ball... i think of it as a Popple bag. And for those who are either so old they forgot what a Popple is, or those *gasp* who are too young to know about them... i dug up an original 80's Popple advert on youtube that's embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Wow. This packaging is the most brilliant way to package a hearing aid i've ever imagined. Feel free to jump ahead and view the video below of the seemingly simple packaging in action... and then come back to finish reading. Basically for those who can't hear... how do you help them experience a sound before even getting to the hearing aid within? You show them a soundwave. In action. They have used the plastic sleeve around the box to create the illusion of an animated soundwave as you push the interior box out. Not to mention the simple black and white nature of the design is just classy. My only problem with this design? I can see it being far too fun to just slide the box in and out to watch the soundwave move, and thus it would take too long to get to the actual hearing aid. I love this. Design is by Copenhagen based design studio Goodmorning, for Widex "high definition hearing".

As you all know by now i find inspiration and amusement in some of the randomest of things. Tonight it was the North Bowl's NEON SIGN. I even made an 8 second video of it in action so you can fall for it too. And no. I didn't even get to step foot into this barely a year old swanky loungey bowling joint. I was at the Conspiracy Showroom across the way meeting all the lovely designer ladies though. But back to the sign. How cool is it? (Watch video below before responding.)

I stopped everything when i saw Swiss Miss' post on Andrew Zuckerman's latest book Creature. And then i clicked through to his site to see more page previews, only to find an incredibly gorgeous site... a peek inside the upcoming book... AND two amazing videos! The kind of amazing videos that you can watch 10 times over, and still need to see them again (screenshots below). Basically the photography of these animals on that clean white space is just breathtaking, and seeing video of him shooting it as well as the book being printed is just the ultimate tease. The book can be pre-ordered at Amazon, and is printed by Chronicle Books. *Swoon*

Google SKY! It's actually been difficult to get myself to stop browsing and just take a screenshot already to write this post... there are SO many places to keep exploring. The latest version of Google Earth lets you flip to Sky Mode and see the sky from the place you were centered on the earth. It's an incredible way to explore and travel from your desktop... there's something absolutely mesmerizing about how beautiful it is. This is in collaboration with NASA/Space Telescope Institute, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and Digital Sky Survey Consortium. Check out the video below with Sally Ride. Also a nice touch are the constellation overlays, hubble showcase images, user's guide to the galaxies, life cycles of stars, and viewing the timelapsed movements of planets.

Adam Gault's Lantern Fish is an incredible short film that will suck you out of your world for a few minutes... with mesmerizing music, and visuals that will take you on a journey through the evolution of these various crazy fish of the deep from around the world. Screenshots of some of the fish below...

This comes from my latest obsession the Feed at StashMedia.tv there are SO many incredible shorts and ads they showcase there it blows my mind... like that Chemical Brother's Salmon Dance video! (it was on org but if you missed it, the youtube is after the jump as well)

Crunchers - the latest ad campaign from Crunch from Curious Pictures. I tracked down 5 of the hilarious animated commercials on youtube for your viewing pleasure below. Also, i must admit, i've never been much of a gym goer... but i'm impressed with Crunch - you know the one with the crazy classes like surfing fitness, stiletto strength, pole dancing, BOSU balancing, Cirque du soleil like stunts, and boxing... (not to mention i got my ass kicked by a trainer today, so i'm extra sore and indulging in watching videos and posting from the couch right now)... beyond the simply awesome ad campaign (you will love them) - the SF location i gave in to has a nice, fun, funky feel - doesn't smell like a gym, nice machines, like the layout, 3 story rock wall - and i swear every time i have been in the locker rooms they are cleaning or have just finished cleaning the showers. Anyhow, if anyone else wants to try it, let me know and i'll email you a guest pass.

p.s. just added a bunch of their wallpapers at the bottom too - the dodgeball one is pretty cute.